Sad news today, that Poland's 1996 Nobel Prize-winning poet, Wislawa Szymborska, has passed away at the age of 88. Here's a link to the NY Times article:
I studied some of her work during my days at VCFA, and always appreciated her sense of humor. Here's a poem of hers I always liked, called "In Praise of Feeling Bad About Yourself", from 1976:
The buzzard never says it is to blame.
The panther wouldn't know what scruples mean.
When the piranha strikes, it feels no shame.
If snakes had hands, they'd claim their hands were clean.
A jackal doesn't understand remorse.
Lions and lice don't waver in their course.
Why should they, when they know they're right?
Though hearts of killer whales may weigh a ton,
in every other way they're light.
On this third planet of the sun
among the signs of bestiality
a clear conscience is Number One.
Good stuff, and a whole body of stellar work left behind. RIP, lady.
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